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SURVIVING IN SHADOW: Widespread Militarization and the Systematic Use of Forced Labour in the Campaign for Control of Thaton District
VII. Restrictions
In order for the SPDC to firmly stamp its control over the district it restricts the movements of the villagers in the area and forces village heads to provide intelligence reports on the movements of villagers and the resistance.
For the past few years there have been yearly movement restrictions on villagers in Thaton District. In September and October 2001 the DKBA confined villagers to their villages at the beginning of the rice harvest. Villagers were again prohibited from sleeping in their field huts at the beginning of the harvest season in 2002. The SPDC Army and the DKBA jointly prohibited villagers from leaving their villages in all four townships of the district in July 2003. In 2004 the DKBA again did not allow villagers in Bilin and Pa'an townships from going to their fields. 2005 has seen similar restrictions being placed on the villagers. Villagers were not allowed to sleep overnight in their field huts or to carry any packs of rice when they went to work in their fields. These movement restrictions are particularly difficult for the villagers to bear. If the villagers are not able to sleep in their field huts, they are unable to guard their crops against wild animals and birds that come to eat the grain as it ripens. Much of the crop is trampled as the animals forage in the fields. Some villagers also have fields located some distance from their village so the time taken to walk to their fields each day limits the amount of time they can actually spend working in their fields [ see the 'Food Security' section] . When the villagers are confined to their villages their crops are often partially or completely destroyed, resulting ultimately in many villagers going hungry because they were unable to acquire enough food.
"We have to be afraid of the Burmese. The Burmese said, 'Don't sleep in the forest [fields] now. We have many children [soldiers] and we can't tell all of them. If they see you, they will kill and torture you. Don't sleep in the forest. If you see us, don't run. Go quietly and come quietly'."
"Naw Kay Lah" (F, 42), village head and teacher from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #41, 8/02)
"I can't travel to work smoothly because the Burmese are patrolling. Sometimes when they come they say, 'Don't go.' We don't dare to go. Sometimes we meet them when we are going and they summon us back. They do not allow us to go. They will accuse us of contacting the Nga Pway ['Ringworm'; SPDC slang for the KNU/KNLA]."
"Saw Pa Lah" (M, 24), villager from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #44, 11/02)
"They prohibited us. When they came up they didn't allow people to travel. They forced us to stay in the village. They said to not go anywhere. They said, 'If we don't go, you also can't go. Go after we go out.' Sometimes they had already left the village, but they didn't allow us to go outside yet."
"Naw Maw Thee" (F, 20), refugee from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #55, 4/03)
"KNU soldiers don't come and torture us, but don't you believe that the Burmese and the Ko Per Baw [DKBA] don't. When the Ko Per Baw came they restricted us. We couldn't go out [from the village]. We couldn't even take care of the cows outside. The cows were staying in the village, but what were they going to eat? They got nothing to eat. When they came last year in the month of Tawthalin [Burmese month corresponding to September/October] they restricted us."
"Naw Kee Per" (F, 44), village head from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #40, 8/02)
"We can't work freely. We have to stay among the SPDC. We do not sleep at the field huts. Only the men dare to sleep there [in the fields] and they hide to sleep. If they [SPDC] see the people they will beat them. It is because they ordered us not to sleep there. The people do not dare to sleep there. We work and we are afraid. We have to work in fear. It is very hard. We go, go, go and come back in the evening. We have to come back early. If we don't work we can't get food to eat. We have to endure it ourselves."
"Naw Kee Per" (F, 44), village head from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #40, 8/02)
"They [SPDC] said, 'Don't sleep in the hill fields. If we see you in the hill fields we will say you are the relatives of the Nga Pway. When we are coming to stay in the village, all of you come back to sleep in the village.' When they [SPDC] stay at yyyy and zzzz we have to sleep in the villages. They do not allow us to go."
"Naw Wee Wee" (F, 42), village head from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #48, 11/02)
"We are working and fleeing. When the Burmese are patrolling we have to run. When the others run, we also have to run. Our people don't go when they demand 'loh ah pay', so when people say to run, we must run. If our people went [for forced labour as ordered] we wouldn't have this problem. We can't go in the night like in the past. We go when there are no Burmese [soldiers]. We go to sleep at the field huts and watch for the pigs [wild pigs that eat the crop] at paddy [harvest] time. When the Burmese come close we don't dare to go and sleep there."
"Saw Ko Pi" (M, 32), villager from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #49, 11/02)
When villagers are allowed to travel to their fields, there are often restrictions on how much rice they can carry, or sometimes even that they cannot carry any packs of rice at all. Villagers caught carrying rice are accused of providing it to the resistance and can be arrested and tortured. Villagers must also typically get a travel pass from the village head when they travel outside the village [also see the 'Food Security' section] . These passes are usually stamped by the village head using a stamp given to him by the SPDC. The DKBA also issues passes. In October 2003, DKBA officer Lay Htoo ordered that male villagers between 15 and 60 years of age from at least 18 different villages in Bilin township would have to buy travel passes at the cost of 200 Kyat per pass. These travel passes must be presented whenever the villagers pass through a military checkpoint or camp or whenever they meet an SPDC or DKBA patrol. Villagers who are caught outside their villages without these passes would be accused of being members of the resistance and thus would be arrested and killed [also see the 'Killings, Detention, and Torture' section] .
"The hill fields on the near side of the hill have to register. They [SPDC] ordered us to write down the number of people who are doing the hill fields or the flat fields. They wrote it when they were going to work and to keep away the [wild] pigs."
"Saw Ko Pi" (M, 32), villager from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #49, 11/02)
"They [DKBA] called men from every village. They had to write passes. They demanded 200 Kyat for one pass. 'If we don't see a pass, you must die. We will declare that you are KNU soldiers and are hardcore. We will kill anyone who doesn't have a pass. If we see you in the jungle during that time, we will shoot you.' During that time they didn't allow the people to go to their hill fields and flat fields. During that time the civilians didn't dare to go to their hill fields. Many of their hill fields were destroyed."
"Saw Eh K'Thaw" (M, 55), Karen district official (Interview #7, 11/03)
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| This villager from Bilin township was captured along with his friend by a combined column of SPDC and DKBA soldiers and questioned as to the whereabouts of a KNLA officer. The soldiers beat him with their rifles and the stick that he is shown here holding until it split. He was later released when the soldiers were satisfied that he didn't know anything. [Photo: KHRG] |
"They [SPDC] gave us a council [Village Peace and Development Council] stamp. It is always in the village. We have to write passes for the villagers when they want to travel."
"U Maung Lay" (M, 39), village head from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #23, 2/02)
Many village heads must also send information to the nearby Army camp at least once a day. The SPDC insists that information be sent to them on any guests in the village, the arrival of any KNU/KNLA in the village, the movements of KNLA around the village and even the movements of the DKBA around the village. Village heads are supposed to keep guest registers where villagers have to write the name of any overnight guests in the village. SPDC officers also sometimes request lists of monasteries and the number of monks, churches and the names of pastors, schools and numbers of teachers and students, and registers of all the families in the village containing the number of people in each household and their names and ages. These latter registers are used to check for strangers moving between villages around the region, and also as a basis for imposing forced labour and other demands based on village population.
"They asked for information about where they [KNU] were staying. They asked about the KNU soldiers. We had to go and give them information so they could avoid them [KNLA]. They didn't want them to come to their camp. If they didn't come to their camp, they didn't have to go and follow them. They asked me, 'Is there any unusual information?' I said there was no unusual information. ... Sometimes when the village head tells us to go and tell, we go to tell. If he doesn't tell, we don't tell. If they hear it later, they demand one pig to eat. They don't buy it. They fine us when we don't tell them the information. They fine us if there are drivers or guests in the village and the village head doesn't go and tell them. They demand a pig to eat."
"Naw Tah Lay" (F, 26), village head from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #25, 2/02)
"When the Division Commander came he told me that fighting should not occur in the village or outside the village. He said that if fighting occurred he would drive us out, and he has already found a place at the Lay Kay football field. He had finished measuring the area. He spoke like that. We thought we would try to keep our children [the KNLA] away as much as we could, because if they meet the Burmese we will be driven out. Now he doesn't speak like that. He said that if the people come to the village, we should send information quickly. He will drive us out immediately if we don't send it quickly. He said this on the 17 th of last month [February 17 th 2002]."
"Daw Kyaw Wah" (F, 47), village head from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #29, 3/02)
"They [SPDC] called the village heads and gathered them. After they gathered them, they asked about the Nga Pway. 'Does the Nga Pway come back or not?' If we tell them they didn't come back, our head makes a noise. They say, 'Don't you like us? The people told me that they came back one or two months ago.' We can't say about one or two months ago. We can't say if they came one or two days ago."
"Saw Kyi Nu" (M, 28), villager from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #30, 3/02)
Order #13 translated below was issued to a village head by SPDC military intelligence, demanding a list of names and the photos of people from his village who were recently recruited by the KNLA. This order presents a very difficult problem for the village head. If he complies with the order and supplies the list of names, he will endanger the lives of those on the list and possibly also their families still living in the village, and he might also be arrested by the KNU as an SPDC informer. Conversely, if he does not provide the list to the SPDC, he risks arrest by the SPDC as a KNU sympathiser. If he cannot negotiate his way around this order in some way, he may have little choice but to flee the village.
Order #13
Stamp: Frontline # xx Light Infantry Battalion
Frontline # xx Light Infantry Battalion Naung K'Dote, Kya Ka Chaung area
General Staff / Intelligence Letter No: 380 / Sa Ba Ya 0 Dtway 8 / Oo 1
Date: Year 2004, September 6 th
To:
Chairperson / Village Head
xxxx Village
Subject: Notifying [you] to report information to the yyyy Operations Commander
Regarding the above subject, some new people were recruited from the elder's village by tha ka tha [insurgents] , so bring the list of names of these youths and their photos, and come without fail to report to the Operations Commander at yyyy [Army] Camp on Monday September 6 th , year 2004.
[Sd.]
(For) Battalion Commander
Intelligence Officer
[In red ink:]
If [you] fail to send the information, it is the responsibility of the elder.
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| Order #13: This order is demanding that the village head provide the names of villagers who were suspected to have recently been recruited by the KNLA. Failing to do so will lead to problems with the SPDC, yet if he hands the names over he may then face problems with the KNLA. |
Restrictions are sometimes eased when a new SPDC officer rotates into the area every few months, only to be hardened again when a more hardline officer rotates in. Restrictions can therefore be erratic and are wholly dependent on the whims of various local officers, which can sometimes contradict each other. For example, starting in June 2003 villagers from Paya Raw village in Bilin township were allowed to begin catching frogs again at night and sleep in their field huts, which they had previously been forbidden to do. However, they are prohibited from using torches (flashlights) while hunting for frogs at night, because electric torches and batteries are considered rebel equipment. In SPDC-controlled areas where there is KNLA activity, villagers are only allowed to use firebrands or kerosene torches when going outside. Villagers in Thaton District are still prohibited from carrying batteries and medicine [see the 'Education and Health' section] . Similar to the restrictions placed on carrying additional rice, the SPDC believes that the villagers will supply any medicine or batteries that they have to the resistance. The SPDC fears that the batteries will then be used in the construction of the KNLA's homemade landmines [see the 'Landmines' section] .
"They don't allow us to do things fully every year. Sometimes they allow us to use torches [flashlights], and sometimes they don't allow us to use them at all. Sometimes they say, 'Go catch frogs and feed me also.' Sometimes we go to catch them and sometimes we can't catch them at all. I have no idea about what they do. I am a village head, but I am confused."
"Saw Cho Aung" (M, 49), village head from xxxx village, Bilin township (Interview #64, 7/03)
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